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Failure
at Montparnasse, France, 1895]] Failure (colloquially fail, phail or flop) in general refers to the state or condition of not meeting a desirable or intended objective. It may be viewed as the opposite of success. Criteria for failure The criteria for failure are relative to a particular observer and may be based on the individual's belief system. A situation considered to be a failure by one might be considered a success by another, particularly in cases of direct competition or a zero-sum game. As well, the degree of success or failure in a situation may be differently viewed by distinct observers or participants, such that a situation that one considers to be a failure, another might consider to be a success, a qualified success or a neutral situation. Failure requires a subjective interpretation, therefore an inanimate object may not be said to have failed. An exception to this case would be an indirect failure, such as a failure of a machine built by a subjective being, but not failure as a direct result of the subjective action of programming it. Rather the failure would be a result of a combinatoric failure of both events in time and the subjective interpretation of the outcome of his goal. It may also be difficult or impossible to ascertain whether a situation meets criteria for failure or success due to ambiguous or ill-defined definition of those criteria. Finding useful and effective criteria, or heuristics, to judge the success or failure of a situation may itself be a significant task. Types of failure Failure can be differentially perceived from the viewpoints of the evaluators. A person who is only interested in the final outcome of an activity would consider it to be an Outcome Failure if the core issue has not been resolved or a core need is not met. A failure can also be a process failure whereby although the activity is completed successfully, a person may still feel dissatisfied if the underlying process is perceived to be below expected standard or benchmark. #Failure to anticipate #Failure to perceive #Failure to carry out a task Commercial failures A commercial failure is a product that does not reach expectations of success, failing to come even close. A major flop goes one step further and is recognized for its complete lack of success. Most of the items listed below had high expectations, significant financial investments, and/or widespread publicity, but fell far short of success. Due to the subjective nature of "success" and "meeting expectations", there can be disagreement about what constitutes a "major flop." *For flops in computer and video gaming, see List of commercial failures in computer and video gaming *For company failures related to the 1997–2001 Dot-com bubble, see Dot-com company *See also Vaporware See also * Academic failure * Academic underachievement * Achievemnet * Failure analysis * Failure rate * Failure mode * Murphy's law * System accident References * Charles Perrow, Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies, New Tork: Basic Books, 1983. Paperback reprint, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999, ISBN 0-691-00412-9 * Sandage, Scott A. Born Losers: A History of Failure in America. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2005. ISBN 0-674-01510-X, ISBN 0-674-02107-X External links * Know Your Meme: FAIL Category:Failure Category:Maintenance Category:Reliability engineering